Japanese Goby

This week we said goodbye to Yoshi from Japan. He was diving with us last May and got fed up with the typhoons and bad weather in Japan and came back for some more diving 2 months later! His favourite picture was this one of the Shrimp Goby, it lives in a sandy hole with 1 (sometimes 2) shrimps: the goby keeps guard whilst the shrimp cleas the home. Its hard to get a good picture of the goby as its very shy and darts back into its hole when it senses danger, and the white sand means that a flash will “white-out” the picture.

You can see more of Yoshi’s pictures on his website.

Videos in Lembeh

In June 2007 we hosted videographer Mark Thorpe, seen on the right with all his equipment. In order to save excess-baggage, Mark has to pay for two seats when he flies!

Mark is a professional videographer from Palau who got sick of all the sharks and manta’s - “there’s just only so many sharks you can film!” - and spent three weeks with us in the muck of Lembeh. He did do a side trip to Bunaken but returned to Lembeh the next day as he reckoned “its just like Palau!”.

Mark taped over 20 hours of footage, and as you can see from the second picture on the right, I did my best to keep it! I asked him what his highlights were, and although he is still editing he said that they included:

- a Shellfish attacking and devouring a Sea Cucumber

- a heavily-pregnant Pygmy Seahorse

- Mating Common Seahorses

- Mating Bobtail Squid

- Hairy Frogfish predation on smaller fish

- Flamboyant Cuttlefish hunting and feeding

- Territorial yawns from Hairy and Painted Frogfish

- Mimic Octopus in Open Water

- Mating Nudibranchs

- Nudibranchs laying Egg Ribbon

- Eggs in the egg sack of an Ornate Ghost Pipe Fish

- Male Frogfish living on the body of a Female Frog Fish

- Two completely Yellow Ribbon Eels in the same hole

Mark will be sending us a dvd so guests can see his work when they visit us, and you can see more of his work on his blog by clicking here.